The Insight of Weird
by Alien Explosion
Summary: [one shot] Claire and Zach catch a familiar—and strangely compelling—movie on TV. Set during “The Fix.”


_Note: There are movie references abound, but I don't give away any big spoilers. I describe one in some detail, but nothing major. And I really have no idea if you can pirate Halo from a home computer, but hey, apparently Lyle does!_

**The Insight of Weird**

"Sorry, it's going to take like, ten minutes to start up," Claire called to Zach from the family office. "Lyle has a ton of video games on the computer, it's annoying. You can go ahead and watch some TV if you want."

"So our top secret investigation of your dad is going to be delayed just because your brother can't get enough of The Sims?" Zach asked from the couch, which he had flung himself on to the moment he stepped into the house. He picked up the remote and started flipping.

"Uh, I think it's Halo, actually," said Claire, sifting through some of the burned CD's on the desk.

"But isn't Halo for X-Box? Hey…" he started evily, as realization dawned on him, "I think your brother's a pirate, Claire. Maybe we oughta bust him, too. Since he's making it easy anyway by leaving his evidence around and all that."

Zach heard Claire snort over the Jeopardy theme song. "Right, because people still hunt down illegal downloaders."

"Uh, yeah, they do," said Zach matter-of-factly, watching as the moustache-less Alex Trebek graced the screen. "It's called litigation," he continued. "Didn't you hear about that 12 year-old girl they took to trial?"

"They did _not_ sue a 12 year-old for downloading."

"They did! It cost her family so much that they had to get _both_ sets of her grandparents to help pay for the trial, _and_ dip into her college fund. It was so awesome."

Claire rolled her eyes. "You're _so_ weird," she told him with a smile.

And she was thankful for it, because she genuinely did miss this. Hanging out with Zach, discussing the silliest things. She was happy that at least _this_ was back to normal again, even if she had to throw herself off of that abandoned refinery again to do it. But Zach, and his dorky comments and always helpful insight, was totally worth it.

Zach himself felt oddly…comfortable. In sixth grade, kids weren't as hysterical and crazy yet, so being friends with Claire back then was possible. Then they all discovered hormones and cliques and drama, and so nothing was ever really the same. Not that he wanted to be a part of all that fakeness, but with Claire taking part in it, things did get slightly lonely.

And now they were friends again, except older and, well, Claire was freaking Wolverine. And it wasn't awkward at all. It was comfortable. Man. Life was strange like that.

The infomercial on TV stared to bore him, so his eyes wandered away from the screen, stopping on a painting of Mrs. Bennet's pride-and-joy, Mr. Muggles. And she says _I'm_ weird, he thought, look at _her_ crazy family.

Suddenly the real Mr. Muggles trotted out from behind the couch and started barking its head off at him, as if the mutt had heard his thoughts or something. It was the whole "painting-turning-into-real-life" thing that startled Zach the most, but the fact that the dog looked far more primped-up than the picture was a bit of shock too.

"Mr. Muggles, down!" ordered Claire as she entered the room, chasing him away.

He continued to openly stare at Mr. Muggles in all his canine glory even as Claire shooed the dog upstairs. "…Claire, has your mom ever seen _Best in Show_?" He ventured curiously.

"I don't think so. What's that about? Is it another 80's movie you insist I have to see, like _The Breakfast Club_?"

Zach snorted, even though she was probably talking about another conversation he couldn't remember. He just loved the irony Claire presented. "Sure," he finally answered, figuring it was best not to get into a metaphysical discussion, especially since he was sure they'd get into an angry one once she actually got around to watching _The Breakfast Club._

"Anyway, the thing's still loading. What are you watching?"

"I dunno. Just flipping. I think I saw _Clash of the Titans_ on earlier; I'll flip back. You're gonna love it, it's hilarious-"

"Ooh, stop!" said Claire, quickly shoving Zach's legs off of the couch so she could sit and watch the black-and-white film. "I think I've seen this!"

Zach, slightly annoyed, watched a few moments of the movie, trying to recollect from which title he had seen this scene before. It looked sorta familiar…especially the annoyingly hysterical woman screaming at everyone else on screen. Finally it came to him. "…_The Invisible Man_?"

"Yeah!" she said, still just as excited. "I saw this when I was seven!"

Zach blinked at her. "You haven't seen _The Breakfast Club_, but you've seen _The Invisible Man_. A 1930's movie."

"Well, my parents' idea of a date is to stay in and rent old movies on the weekends."

"Since when is _The Invisible Man_ a make-out movie?" he blurted out.

That of course brought an awful image to Claire's mind and made her wince. "Ugh, gross! Thanks for _that_, Zach." He grinned, obviously, a 'no problem' look on his face.

"…No actually," Claire continued, "You know how when you're little and you never get to see anything good on TV because your parents are always covering your eyes or censoring all the grown-up things?"

Zach spent a long minute trying to remember this. "No," he said finally, remembering the time his mom allowed him to watch _Beetlejuice_ when he was four and how he absolutely loved every minute of it.

Claire rolled her eyes. "Well, the only time my dad got to pick a movie, he accidentally brought this home." She laughed. "It was so funny though, because he kept insisting he'd picked up _Roman Holiday_, but that someone at work was playing a prank on him or something. Of course my mom just got really mad, and so I got to watch a little bit of this while they were arguing."

And abruptly, her laughing trailed off fast. She was still for a moment, her face looking so amazed and yet so horrified at how the memory of back then was substantially different from the way things were now.

"So you like this movie?" Zach asked, deciding to direct her mind away from her father's conspiracy stuff, if only for a little while.

She snapped out of it and watched the TV with some fascination now, as the invisible man began to unravel the bandages around his hollow head in front of a mob of petrified people. "Well," she said, "I only got to see like, ten minutes before my mom walked in and made me stop the tape…Whoa…" The invisible man laughed diabolically as the people ran frantically out of the room.

"A cheerleader who watches old horror movies?" Zach teased. "You're _so_ weird." Claire gave him a severe look for his imitation, and then punched him in the arm. "Ow!"

"Thank you, Zach."

"For what?"

"For the compliment."

"If that was a compliment, why'd you punch me?"

Claire smiled breezily. "Weird people do that."

Zach shook his head, confused, but decided not to ask and continued to watch the movie. He remembered that he hadn't particularly liked it the first time he saw it; after all it _was_ from 1933 and the effects were kinda hokey. Currently the invisible man was wearing only a shirt, so a luminescent shirt was chasing some men kind of hilariously around the room.

"I wonder," Claire said suddenly, "if there really is an invisible man out there?"

"I dunno, haven't seen him," deadpanned Zach.

"_Zach_…" She sighed. "I guess I'm just sort of wondering. I know there's other people like me, but…" She thought of Peter Petrelli, the nice, decent guy who came to the rescue when he didn't have to at Homecoming. She thought about him often. But when she did, she almost always also thought of the other man, the vicious man who pursued her and murdered Jackie.

She continued to think out loud. "I don't know, I think this just kind of reminded me that there are others like me who are, well, you know-"

Zach nodded to the TV. "Like Mr. Misanthropy over there? Well, I'm guessing they don't give all the superpowers to nice cheerleaders, otherwise I'd be reading a lot more comic books."

"The man at Homecoming," she said finally, wording what she'd meant to express when she'd first wondered about the invisible man. "The one who came after me and killed Jackie. He was really powerful. He was…insane. Just like the invisible man." Zach stared at her concernedly, staying silent.

Claire was lost in thought. Just _what_ exactly were Peter Petrelli, the Haitian, and…her _father_ trying to protect her from? Sure, the man at Homecoming, but he couldn't possibly be the only one. That was obvious, since the Haitian had told her that she was saved "for now," whatever that meant. She believed Peter's reason; his valiance and…_sincerity_ prevented it from being anything but truth to her. But she couldn't allow herself to trust anyone else.

She had a right to know. Especially if she was expected to be brainwashed and lied to about it.

Angry, she stood up and looked at Zach determinedly. "Zach, we're going to get to the bottom of this."

He blinked at her. "What about that stuff about the crazy guy who tried to kill you?"

"You know…" She closed her eyes. "When you have a power like this, you…I don't know, you kind of see that there's not a lot out there that can hurt you. But now I realize that there really is something that can. I can't just, you know, let my dad make me forget about it and censor what's going on." She looked at him. "I have to know."

"You will find out, Claire, I know you will," said Zach, as he stared at Claire earnestly. He gave her a relaxed, almost admiring smile. And he could barely believe it as he said it. "You've gotten weirder since the sixth grade, Claire."

It was spoken sincerely, but to Claire, the comment seemed to come completely out of nowhere. It was so random, but it diffused her anger so effectively that she actually laughed, hard. "How so?" she asked finally, smiling as well.

Zach grinned wide. "You grew up."

Claire turned around and walked into the office resolutely. She stopped at the door and, feeling extremely grateful, told Zach, "Thanks for the insight."

**The End.**


End file.
